


Distractions

by lena-in-a-red-dress (CSIGurlie07)



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Missing Scene, Pre-Supercorp - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:15:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23985922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CSIGurlie07/pseuds/lena-in-a-red-dress
Summary: Trapped in a suit to preserve her life, Kara goes searching for a distraction, and finds a heart-to-heart. (a 4x04 missing scene)
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 3
Kudos: 202





	Distractions

Alex might order her to stay put, but that doesn’t mean Kara has to stay in the medbay. She goes wandering, and eventually finds her way to the lower labs, where Brainy and Lena have set up shop. Alex said they were working on the cure, but when Kara slips inside the room, only Brainy seems to be functioning.

Lena sits between a laptop and a microscope with her head propped against one fist, sleeping.

Brainy notices her immediately, and quickly comes to explain.

“Miss Luthor will certainly be upset with me for allowing her to sleep, but humans as a rule operate best with at least seven hours of sleep per night, and she’s gone without for the past 74.67 hours–”

Kara pats his arm. “It’s okay, Brainy.” Her gaze stays on Lena, but she realizes belatedly that Brainy can’t discern as much through the dark visor.

“Give us a minute?” she asks softly.

He blinks, then straightens. “Of course. Miss Luthor was in need of more coffee anyway. I shall procure another pot.”

Kara doesn’t quite know how to wake Lena, but the sound of the door closing behind Brainy solves the problem for her. Lena stirs at the heavy click, eyes blinking open. Kara smiles in greeting as Lena’s focus wanders towards her, but it does nothing to stop her friend from jolting in her seat.

“Jesus!” Lena curses, pressing a hand to her chest. “Supergirl.”

“Sorry,” Kara says. Her voice sounds flat in her helmet. She wonders if her voice carries through, or if the helmet’s speakers make her sound like a robot. “I didn’t mean to…”

Lena waves the apology away. “No, it’s fine. It’s just that the lack of face is unsettling. I’ll program an LED matrix like Daft Punk has.”

Kara almost laughs, before she remembers she’s supposed to be Supergirl– not Kara. She clears her throat. “Or you could just not make the visor black.”

“It isn’t.” Lena stands, rolling her shoulders. Her dress can’t be comfortable: it’s wrinkled and has ridden up her thighs. Lena tugs it back down with practiced ease. Kara almost loses track of their conversation.

“What?”

“The visor is the weakest part of the suit. I reinforced it with a liquid filtration system designed to block the entry of foreign radiation particles. That’s what makes it opaque. If not for the kryptonite in the atmosphere, it would be completely transparent.”

Kara stares at Lena, unable to chase away the awe that steals over her. For a moment, she can almost forget the fact she’s trapped in her own body. “You made this, for me.”

A flush rises to Lena’s cheeks.

“When?”

“I don’t think you want me to answer that.”

“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have asked.” Kara props her fists on her hips. She almost lets them drop again when Lena’s eyebrow quirks at the sight. It’s less effective now that Lena knows Alex is prone to the same stance. “Lena…”

“Before I synthesized the kryptonite.”

“Before Reign?”

Lena nods, and Kara grits her teeth. Lena was right– she didn’t like that answer. Because it means that while Kara had ranted and raved at her for making kryptonite without the DEO’s knowledge, Lena had a way to protect her from it all along.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She can’t pretend she isn’t angry. The words clip out of her, and it takes every muscle in her body to keep from pacing. “You had it all along–”

“I’m a Luthor.”

Kara takes a breath to scold her, but stops when she sees dark lips curl in a wry smile.

“We learn early the joy of throwing unforeseen information into our opponents’ faces. There’s something special in watching someone just dig themselves deeper and deeper.”

“I swear to Rao, Lena–”

“And we also like to be proven right. You reacted precisely the way I knew you would. Telling you about the suit might have made you go easy on me.”

_“Exact–,_ ” Kara cuts herself off. Anger and resentment bubbles up inside her, and for a moment she relishes it as something different from the suffocating closeness of the suit. But then she stops, and tamps it down. She has more she wants to say– countless things, not many of them nice, but she stops herself when she finds Lena staring at her with an uncanny gaze.

Lena may not have given her all the facts, but neither has Kara. Kara chose to take away Lena’s opportunity to react to the truth… She can hardly fault Lena for doing the same.

“Thank you,” is all she says, in the end.

Lena’s gaze falls away from her.

“You shouldn’t thank me.”

“Too late.” Her attempt at levity is meant with a stony gaze.

“How much did they tell you? About how–”

“Mercy and Otis escaped, and took Jensen with them–”

“It was my device,” Lena blurts.

“But Mercy was the one who used it. This isn’t on you, Lena. No one here thinks that.”

Lena scowls. “It doesn’t matter.” She swallows, straightens, and lifts her chin in challenge. “I’m going to fix it.”

There was never any doubt in Kara’s mind.

_(Okay, there was, but only when Alex first condemned her to the medbay, when Kara first realized the restrictions of the suit and the fact that she might be stuck and idle for all time…)_

“In fact, I should get back to work.”

Lena doesn’t wait for a response. She turns in a circle, curses at the empty coffee pot, and then runs her fingers through her hair as she turns to the nearest monitor. Kara can’t tell whether she likes what she sees, but pale fingers start flying as they tap against the keyboard, feeding endless streams of code into a matrix.

She wonders, briefly, if Brainy is impressed with Lena’s prowess, or threatened. Perhaps both. Kara can almost hear it now.

For a human, her intellect is far greater than the average of this era.

“Can I help?” she asks.

The tapping slows, then stops. Lena turns, eyebrow creeping upwards. Kara is quick to explain. “I just– Al– Agent Danvers–”

“Director.”

“ _Director Danvers_ grounded me. And I’m about to go out of my mind back in the medbay. My skin is crawling and I have this itch–”

“We can’t really afford any distractions…”

“Please,” Kara says curtly. The suit is pressing in on her again, under the weight of looming solitude. “I can’t– I can’t go back there.”

She sucks in breath after breath, heart pounding. When she can bear to meet Lena’s gaze, she’s met with a mix of pity and horror. Supergirl is claustrophobic, and Lena is the one who put her in a full body cast.

Lena’s head bobs. “Of course,” she says, swallowing thickly. “Of course, you can stay as long as you like.”

Relief pours through her like air. Kara closes her eyes. “Thank you.”

After a long moment, Lena returns to her work. Kara’s presence does distract her, as evidenced by the short bursts of typing that slow and finally stop as Lena turns back towards her.

“Have you ever traveled the human vascular system?”

Kara blinks. “Whuh?” She didn’t think that was a thing most species could do. “I’m not sure I understand the question.”

“Would you like to?”

Her lips spread to match Lena’s grin, but Kara still has no idea what is going on. “You’ve lost me.”

Lena goes to her laptop and plugs in a usb drive. “L-Corp designed an interactive tutorial for use in the children’s museum. We mapped the entirety of a human cardiovascular system, and used it to create a VR game. It’s almost finished– I can upload it into your suit, and– hold on it may get dark for a second…”

Her helmet goes dark, silencing her view of the lab. But before Kara can panic it flickers back to life, but this time she’s staring down a long tunnel, with simulated red and white blood cells floating around her.

“Whoa!” She reaches out, and taps a cell with one finger. It bounds away with a theatrical _sproing_ and the suit around her fills with the steady _wubdub_ of a beating heart. “This– this is so cool!”

“It’s a game, so your objective is to blast as many foreign bodies as you can, and pack any perforations with platelets to clot any bleeding. Viruses are quick and mean, but the cancer cells deplete your health more quickly, so you have to work smarter, not harder.”

“Where do I go?”

“Anywhere you like. We haven’t gotten around to a final boss, so consider it an open world environment.”

Tilting forward onto her toes propels Kara down the channel of the vessel. She recognizes the spidery, polyhedral representation of a virus with ease, and carefully fires a test shot at it. On the screen, a bolt of energy flies from her gauntlet and incinerates her foe with ease.

Kara whoops, spinning with delight until her vision swims with platelets. “Whoa… Feels like space.” Then she laughs as she tilts back the way she came, zooming with abandon. “This is amazing! Lena, you’re a genius! Oh man, Barry would get such a kick out of– _sweet Rao!”_

“What? What’s wrong?” Lena’s voice comes sharp and tinny through her helmet. Kara laughs maniacally, unable to muster any remorse for causing concern.

“I’m Ray Palmer!” she crows. _“Hahahahaha!_ Suck it, Atom!”

“You just said his name was Ray–” Kara whirls to chase a bacteria, and collides with a corporeal obstacle. “Ouch!”

“Oops! Sorry.”

Invisible hands gently guide her to a new location– presumably away from any sensitive or human. “Have at it, Supergirl,” Lena urges. There’s a grin in her voice, and Kara’s chest warms at the sound of it. “Call if you need me.”

“Wait, Lena!” Kara reaches blindly for her, and thinks she finds Lena’s shoulders. She carefully wraps her in a gentle, firm hug. “Thank you.”

Lena’s arms circle around her in return. What Kara thinks is a small sigh crackles through the comms in her helmet.

“You’re welcome.”

Later, when the atmosphere is scrubbed of Kryptonite and the Graves siblings are found and Agent Liberty stopped for good, Kara tells Lena the truth of her identity.

To her surprise, Lena only laughs.

Turns out she put it together that afternoon she spent listening to Supergirl chasing down digital pathogens, _pew-pewing_ all the way.


End file.
